Well it's quite obvious if that Europe is spending more public money than other parts of the world its economy will struggle to compete and so its living standards fall as will its ability to have a big social spend. It's a fact that will make things worse for more or less everyone. Despite Mrs Merkel's warnings the German coalition is following a dangerous path and its economy is starting to suffer. France with its strange leader is already a basket case.



Why do people on the left always equate throwing money at something equalling improvement? We throw more money per head at school kids in this country than most places and get worse outcomes. In my day I went to a school that had relatively poor, outdated facilities but good teachers and outcomes were pretty good. Mrs Dally went to a similar establishment and her school produced the best outcomes in the county. Indeed, I would argue that an austere environment is preferable when it comes to education. Comfort breeds complacency (which in a wider sense has become a national problem). It's not what you spend, it's how you spend it that counts.

Thank you.



You've not answered a single point I've made.



Let's put it another way: if wide income inequality affects social outcomes negatively, then it will cost more money than narrower income inequality that affects social outcomes less negatively.



So that's saving money, not 'throwing' it at anything.

As one who benefited from the top tier of an elitist education system (yes I passed my 11-plus) I'm not in a good place to comment, let it suffice that we had a good quality of teaching staff across the board who used very different methods to those which my children received, sometimes those different methods worked sometimes they didn't but the facilities at our elite grammar school were as good as they came in the 1970s and they produced the doctors and lawyers that are still servicing our society now, and they produced me, not that they'd ever admit to that.



Good teaching staff in an austere setting will not produce results as well as good teaching staff with good facilities and for this you need public investment and a government who has the will to keep investing and not just throw "emergency funding" at a problem that is highlighted by a press campaign and that only exists because funding was not made right at the start - you can't teach kids in a field no matter how good a teacher you are.

Really good post.



Both of my (state) grammar schools, with quite different intakes and catchment areas, were rated very highly. And neither was poorly equipped or with leaky roofs etc.

I'm still waiting for Dally's definition of "social spending"

It seems appropriate to post the following quote:



"Overcoming poverty is not an act of charity. It is an act of justice." Nelson Mandela, July 2005



Some people here appear to believe that either justice is simply not attainable or that it is not desirable.

There is also the long standing issue of why formal governments exist at all, why do we need them if we prefer not to waste tax income on wasteful unnecessary things like infrastructure, benefits, pensions, education, healthcare etc etc.



We could instead simply have a small forum of senior legal experts to draft and discuss any potential new laws and complete the privatisation of everything by letting businesses "who know what they are doing, for a profit motive" run everything else with a small forum of accountants to divvy up the budgets.



Turn the Houses of Parliament into a museum and bobs your uncle, if we all agree to pay for everything we ever need in life then you won't even have to pay income tax and in this brave new utopia with no MP's I'd suggest that we only pay our council tax to keep the streets lit at night (ours aren't anymore by the way) and policed.



Sorted (on my day off).

You won't need to pay tax though, just a direct charge to a privatised (for profit) police force.



Same with a fire service etc.

We're not far off that happening according to my fireman step brother.

Why? And can you define social spend yet? Or why pure GDP is the sign of wealth of a nation?





What fact? You haven't stated any.





No it's not. Anyone who describes the French economy as a basket case, thereby equating it to Greece, doesn't understand economics. Having said that our dear Chancellor kept equating the UK to Greece so it's an easy mistake to make, especially if you don't know what you're on about.





Why do people on the right insist on making stuff up?





Do we? How are you quantifying how much is spent per head at school kids compared to other countries? Because they aren't easily obtainable or comparable figures. And how are you quantifying the outcomes?





What makes you think it's extra spending that means the outcomes today are worse (in your opinion) than in your day?

Are you saying that schools, teachers and students are more complacent than they used to be? Because I think you'd be in a minority there.

Just following your lead. Asked you 3 simple questions. No replies.

Well, I don't know Mrs M's precise definition - but it will inlude housing, pensions, medical, welfare, education, etc



GDP per capita is a good proxy to wealth. If Europe has 7% of the world's population and 25% of its GDP it does not take a genius to work out that its per capita GDP is many times the world's average. If you have ever travelled outside Europe you would have seen that too. It's not rocket science.



As to spending, as was widely reported earlier in the week the OECD issued its findings on education across 65 countries. Our 15 year olds' performance was 26th in Maths, 23rd in reading, 21st in science. Our average percapita spend for 6-15 year old education was 17.6% over the OECD average spend whereas our per capita GDP was only 4.6% above. Our spend was the 11th highest per child but as noted above their proficiency was less than 11th in all three categories. So, seems like our kids are inherently thick or money is not been wisely spent.

And you have failed to respond to repeated requests to explain what you think 'social spending' means.

I asked my questions first. I have also done so above.

And I have explained to you, in the simplest terms that I could manage, that the wider the income gap, the more the cost to the state in terms of lower social outcomes.







As has been pointed out, you're quite clearly confused about matters such as GDP etc.



And are you really suggesting that, for instance, the UK should increase aid so as 'level the playing field', as you seem to see it?



Or what? We stop, for instance, selling lots of financial services and let the Chinese or the Indians do it instead?



Or are you seriously suggesting that we cut healthcare and education etc?



What you refuse utterly to deal with in all this is the actual, real-time consequences.



Do you imagine it would suddenly be nice and cheap if people just happen to be bounced out of their homes on to the street because they don't earn enough to keep a roof over their heads and government decides it'll do away with housing benefits? Or if we'd just butcher education and health spending, even though we'd then be consequently less productive?



Perhaps we should cut pensions? Maybe just send the retired off into the wilderness to die and stop eating up valuable resources?



I repeat, because I have been asking this for weeks if not months, and you're just one of many who ignores it: the evidence shows that the wider the income gap, the poorer the social outcomes for ALL of a society. And those poorer social outcomes come at a financial cost too.



Next, for someone who has posted many times on this forum about the need for people (well, not himself, obviously) to become religious again in order to make them behave better, you could do with showing some sense of morals/ethics yourself.



At present, your entire line seems to be that if Big Business and Big Finance tell you something, you swallow it hook line and sinker, and are then entirely happy for your fellow citizens to suffer,.



You never have a single concrete answer to that suffering; ever, or to how far you think people who blameless for the financial crisis can be pushed and what will happen if they keep on being pushed.







The bulk of the global 'cake', if you insist on such an analogy, is held by a very, very small percentage of the population/companies/banks: and the ordinary working people of this country are not included any more than the ordinary working people of any other countries are included.



Merkel is a conservative who will never easily admit that the major problem is the power of transnational and multination corporates, and the era's dominant political-economic ideology that has worked to put an ever-increasing share of that bleedin' cake into the hands of fewer and fewer people.



Different shares of the cake? Happily. Let's sort out big business and big finance then, which is ripping off people around the world and then playing them off against each other.







See your previous question and my previous answer. It wouldn't need to if big business and big finance behaved with human decency at their core, and if sustainability and the long-term were considered as opposed to short-term profit that puts human beings as the least important part of the equation.

Lie down dear. After that off topic rant you need it.

It's not "off topic". And yet again you cannot or will respond.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25241726Illustration of how highly profitable companies are using the financial crisis to exploit even more people.[/url



"Although US internship offerings have always ranged from the paid to the unpaid, increasingly in recent years, as the number of unemployed youth has surged in the wake of the financial collapse, the balance has tipped to the unpaid."

You don't half write some tripe at times but this is just out of the Ark.



My wife recently visited a local school to find out about its web site but while she was there was shown the way they organise the students work and in particular homework.



They all have an iPad and the work they do along with notes from the teachers and other resources is all in the school's intra-net. This is accessible from home and the parents are also given access. So the parents can see what homework is set and when it is due.



It uses software similar to this: [urlhttps://www.showmyhomework.co.uk/[/url



No more "The teacher didn't set any homework" from the kids and if teachers don't set any, parents can complain etc.



I am sure this is a very slick and comfortable environment to work within and as the students know everyone can see what they have to do the last thing it will breed is complacency. It will do the exact opposite.



I am sure it also took some money to set it up and to ensure all students could access it.



It is therefore completely at odds with this statement of yours "I would argue that an austere environment is preferable when it comes to education". It's modern, bang up to date and has obvious benefits.



You and Gove will get on well. Harking back to the "Good old days" and blind or even against genuine improvements such as this to the educational system for nonsensical reasons such as it does not provide an austere enough environment. A mind-bogglingly ridiculous stance.

It's too long to be bothered!



But, for a start - where is this evidence you refer to (re income inequality) being bad for ALL. If it is ALL why has nobody thought of adressing the issue? If they haven't and it is bad for ALL then it is only a matter of time before someone does.



Just thinking about China's recent history - income disparaity was relatively low and nearly everone poor. Now they are not but more and more people are not poor. Is that good or bad? How does your evidence explain that?



This big business that rips people off. Are people forced to buy Apple products? Or work for them?

But can they read and write properly? Mrs Dally was only saying last night how bad spelling is becoming in this country - when reading the latest document churned for us by our beloved friends in local government. These people lecture people on how to live their lives and seem incapable of the most basic task themselves. Bet they have iPads and iPhones though! Cool!

Not read your link but in OUR country companies are now been fined significant sums for not paying interns.

Will it? So it includes both public and private spending on such issues then?



Not necessarily. For instance the GDP for producing Nissan cars in Sunderland is counted in the UK's GDP figures. Yet the profits of that aren't necessarily going to British people. GDP and GDP per capita are rendered fairly irrelevant due to globalisation. They give an indication but it is only an indication and needs other factors and indicators taken into account. Such as income inequality. China being a good example of that.





Very nice.





Which, due to numerous factors including types of government, levels of international co-operation and cultural and specific differences is almost impossible to compare.





I'd love to know how they worked that out. Since our public education system isn't split that way, our own government doesn't split education spending figures that way.

But even according to the actual OECD figures, the UK is 13th out of the 32 OECD countries that they've provided proper figures for spending per student on primary, secondary and secondary non-tertiary education core services. What bumps us up the spending table is ancillary services. The OECD average spend is irrelevant.





Only if you think every nation is the same, gives the same information, has the same problems or the same priorities.

Did you also miss the parts where UK students had moved up the tables?

Says everything, really.







[iThe Spirit Level[/i. Despite efforts, nobody has been able to refute it and politicians across the mainstream now pay lip service to it.



Now, time for your answers.

So as the "evidence" shows inequality is bad for all then things will soon change won't they? If not, why not?